My role at NASA Langley

Another productive week has gone by and I am left with 88 more hours of my interesting internship experience. Earlier this week, I was given the opportunity to test my mentor’s product using the software that my project is based on. The product I was testing was a software maintenance plan. My task in this test was to create a project, append the peer review process to the project using the software package, and conduct an overview meeting with the participants of the software maintenance plan product. The main purpose of the test was to verify that all the users received automated email notifications through the software, informing them of tasks they had been assigned to.

The meeting took place two days ago and after my mentor had described the structure of the product, my task escalated into presenting a training session on how to use and access the software package. This was not your usual college course presentation in which you stand in front of your peers, deliver your presentation, and answer any questions that were raised. This demanded a little bit more effort because I had to ensure that the people involved understood the purpose of the software and its relevance the branch.

Fortunately, the questions directed to me were not too difficult to handle. Thankfully I had walked my mentor, Keith Boadway, and my cubicle mate Brandon DeCoursey, through the presentation and both were present to help if my response to certain questions were not exactly clear. During the training session, I realized how I had become so familiar with the software to the point where I could not recall that I had once asked the same questions concerning the software, that I was being asked.

Today as I am typing this out I am scheduled for another training session with the head of the Flight Software Systems Branch. This takes me back to the first three weeks of me being here and how my mentor had once told me that although the project would seem boring, it was important for the branch to go ahead with it. Not only does it feel good to have my work recognized at the branch level but contrary to what my mentor said, working on this project has never been boring.